How Denis Coderre — and a sour note in Davos — pulled the pin on the national unity file

The latest regional brawl over energy — with its corrosive implications for Canadian unity — was triggered by a single sentence in Justin Trudeau’s keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos a week ago.

“My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources,” he said, “I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

This did not go down well in Alberta, where the collapse in oil prices has triggered a recession. BMO’s weekly Focus note on Friday pointed out that Alberta, with only 11 per cent of the Canadian population, created “more than a third” of the country’s new jobs between 2004-14. “However, since oil prices began to slide at the end of 2014, the province has shed more than 70,000 jobs” the bank’s note continued, “and the jobless rate is about to match the national average for the first time in 26 years.” The office vacancy rate in Calgary, the heart of the oilpatch, is 18 per cent.

Trudeau wasn’t done. “Our natural resources are important, and they always will be,” he continued. “But Canadians know that what it takes to grow and prosper isn’t just what’s under our feet, it’s what’s between our ears.”

That didn’t go down well in Alberta, either.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who normally has a strong affinity with Trudeau, happened to be in Davos and politely rebuked the prime minister. “We are still a resource-based economy,” Nenshi said. “Our biggest export is still energy. And I do not see a path where that does not continue to be the case, so clearly we need to do what we can on market access.”

Subsequently, the PMO changed the text of Trudeau’s speech on the PM’s website. The reference to “my predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources” was deleted and replaced by an innocuous sentence stating that “Canada was known mostly for its resources.”

It’s unheard of for a speech to be changed after delivery. And Trudeau was not improvising at the podium, but reading his text from a prompter. Naturally, the change did not pass unnoticed on the Internet and social media.

With Albertans already in a highly sensitive state of mind, their mood turned to anger the day after Trudeau’s speech, when Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre declared that 82 municipalities from his metropolitan region opposed the Energy East pipeline project passing through Quebec to New Brunswick.

Energy East is a $15 billion TransCanada project that would transport 1.1 million barrels a day of Alberta and Saskatchewan crude on a converted gas pipeline to the Quebec border and from there on a new pipeline to Montreal and Lévis, where some of it could be processed, though most of it would be refined at the Irving plant in Saint John before being shipped to overseas markets.

In politics, certain allowances are made for hypocrisy. But this was something to behold — coming from the mayor of a city that dumped billions of litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence.

Energy East would create thousands of jobs for suppliers, would be a significant boost to the New Brunswick economy, and would free the oil industry from the Canadian discount to the U.S., where Canada Select crude is currently trading at half the $30 price of benchmark West Texas Intermediate.

Coderre and the Montreal mayors oppose Energy East passing through Quebec to New Brunswick on the grounds that it’s too risky for the environment, particularly for the St. Lawrence River.

In politics, certain allowances are always made for hypocrisy. But this was something to behold — coming from the mayor of a city that, last fall, dumped billions of litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence. It also should be noted that rusty, single-hull oil tankers carrying heavy Venezuelan crude come downriver to Lévis for refining, and to Montreal East, where it’s shipped by pipeline.

Coderre retorted on his Twitter feed: “Population of Montreal Metropolitan Community 4 million … population of SK, 1.3 million.”
This is playground stuff on both sides.

These juvenile pranks overshadowed Trudeau’s conversation with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, a close ally he clearly urged to strike a conciliatory position with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley in their meeting on Energy East at Queen’s Park last Friday. Previously negative on Energy East, Wynne found cover in Notley’s new climate change plan that caps oilsands emissions.

“The change that Premier Notley’s government has made … makes it much easier now to talk about how we can work together,” Wynne said after the meeting. “We have come a very long way …”

Trudeau’s hand in this was obvious. “I am solidly in one camp on this one,” he declared in Davos the same day. “I am very much in the camp of both premiers Wynne and Notley, who demonstrated that Canada can and should work together on economic issues for all of us.”

That was a good leadership moment for Trudeau, but it was Coderre’s opposition to Energy East that dominated question period when the House resumed Monday following the holiday recess.

“The prime minister should stop using his cell phone for selfies with Leo Di Caprio,” said Opposition Leader Rona Ambrose, “and pick it up and call Denis Coderre to fight for natural resources jobs.”

“It’s interesting,” Trudeau replied, “that the members opposite are criticizing us for not getting done in 10 weeks what they were unable to do in 10 years.”

As parliamentary theatre, it was highly entertaining: Ambrose took a fair shot and Trudeau gave as good as he got. And as it developed, Trudeau’s office had already been in touch with Coderre to set up a Tuesday morning breakfast meeting at Montreal City Hall. Trudeau may well have reminded Coderre of who will be picking up the cheque for the new Champlain Bridge, not to mention assorted infrastructure goodies that will be forthcoming in the budget.

At their media availability, Coderre dialed it back somewhat and Trudeau said that between energy and the environment, “it’s not one or the other … we do need a strong economy and a protected environment.”

Any $15 billion project crossing six provinces to an international gateway clearly qualifies as nation-building. The challenges of social licence from communities and First Nations, not to mention environmental concerns, are contemporary issues that were non-existent in the days when Canadians built the CPR, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the TransCanada Pipeline.

All of this, ultimately, lands in the lap of the prime minister. And Trudeau clearly understands there is no more important file on his desk right now.

L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy, the bi-monthly magazine of Canadian politics and public policy. He is the author of five books. He served as chief speechwriter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1985-88, and later as head of the public affairs division of the Canadian Embassy in Washington from 1992-94.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.